Tunisia on Thursday called for an urgent meeting of the Arab League and an international probe into the 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat over suggestions that he might have been poisoned.

Tunisia on Thursday called for an urgent meeting of the Arab League and an international probe into the 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat over suggestions that he might have been poisoned.

"We call for an urgent meeting of Arab League foreign ministers and the creation of an international committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death" of Arafat, Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem told private radio station Mosaique FM.

"We owe a debt to that great man, who had such an influence on the Palestinian national cause," Abdessalem said after a meeting with President Moncef Marzouki.

Tunisia hosted the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which Arafat was the head, between 1980 and 1990 after they were expelled from Lebanon.

On Wednesday, the Palestinians called for an international probe into Arafat's death after Al-Jazeera television broadcast the results of an investigation it commissioned, which found the Palestinian leader could have been poisoned with the radioactive substance polonium.